Lost: A much-needed recap

Because the season five finale of “Lost” coincided with the final day of exams last year, my final post about the finale never made it online. To prepare for the sixth (and final) season premiere, I am presenting it now to refresh everyone’s memory and get everyone excited for the beginning of the end.

We’ve ended season five how we started it: Top 5s of the “Lost” Season 5 Season Finale.

Love and Lost, Summer

P.S. Special thanks to Seth and Steve for their help with theories and information!

*Top 5 Reactions to the Season Finale*
_(I’m including this category because my repeated outbursts while watching caused my roommates to check on me numerous times.)_

5. Everything is cyclical. Everyone will reset to the LAX flight and everything will happen the same way again. Think “Groundhog Day.” The Losties will all board the plane, land on the island, leave the island, come back to the island, and blow up the island, over and over again with possible minor changes (like Kate falls for Hurley instead, Sawyer falls in love with a different Other in 1977, Charlie dies saving the crew by climbing a mountain instead of swimming to the hatch). It’s just like the idea of fate we’ve been discussing. If something has been written, a thousand different ways can make it happen and it doesn’t matter which one makes it happen because no matter what it will happen. Confused yet? Am I talking it circles? Good. Because that’s the point.

4. Remember how Jack, Kate, and Hurley disappeared from the Ajira plane as it landed on the island and landed near that waterfall? Well, those were the same people present at the site of the “incident.” I think they might be related. Sayid disappeared from the plane too and while he landed in the same time period, he landed in a different, unknown spot. And his gun wounds prevented him from participating in the action at the Swan station building site. Sawyer, Miles, Jin, and Juliet are a separate clause because they never left the island. Perhaps the explosion will only reset to that moment, when Ajira lands on the island, except Jack, Kate and Hurley are in the same time period as Sun, Lapidus, Ilana and co. Maybe.

3. Jacob’s touch (you did notice how he conspicuously made contact with everyone, except Juliet and Ilana, in their flashbacks, right?)…does something. To be honest, I can’t decide what. I’m sure it has healing properties, as evidenced by the Locke flashback. But other than that, I can’t decide. Doc J over at EW thinks Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Jin, Sun and Hurley will all return to the moment in which Jacob touched them with the memory of the past years intact, letting them make their own destiny with the knowledge of what could happen. I think it’s possible, but I don’t think that is what is going to happen. It would be really hard for the producers to catch everyone up from the moment they were touched (childhood for Kate and Sawyer) to the present to show how they did or didn’t make it to the island. Plus, Sayid and Hurley got touched after returning to the island. There are too many loopholes and continuity issues to make this theory probable. My best guess, which is probably wrong, is that his touch is what allows them to come to the island. I realize that Juliet wasn’t touched in her flashback, but that was just one flashback — she has like 30 years of flashbacks in which Jacob could have visited her and touched her. Same thing with the Hurley and Sayid post-island touches; they could have been visited by Jacob more than once. The only problem with this theory is that Jacob didn’t touch Ilana (wore gloves when he visited her actually), but she seems to already have some connection with the island and might not need his pulling touch. I’m backing this theory up with the Man in Black’s comment, “You brought them here,” to Jacob in the beginning.

2. The Rules. My brother Seth — a William and Mary alum, the one who introduced me to “Lost,” and my constant “Lost” sounding-board — and I decided that the rules regard family lines. Such as, no one from either family line can kill someone from another family line. Like a son can kill his father or grandfather but not his uncle or cousin or nephew. Therefore, we think the Man in Black (let’s, for Biblical sake, call him Esau — as in Isaac and Rebecca’s son, competitive twin of Jacob — simply because of the Jacob/Esau twin connection. I’m in no way saying that Lost is telling that Bible story, it’s just convenient. ABC has been referring to him as Man in Black while their casting call for the character named him Samuel. Since there is no one name, I’m going to stick with Esau) and Jacob are indeed brothers, Ben is Jacob’s son and Widmore is Esau’s son. That explains why Widmore couldn’t kill Alex (had meany Keamy do it for him) and Ben couldn’t kill Penny. And also why Ben didn’t kill Widmore in his penthouse when he had the chance. Back to that scene where Keamy kills Alex for a second: Ben says, “He changed the rules.” In light of this new theory, I’m going to interpret that to mean that the two family lines had decided to live in disharmony together, just making each other as miserable as possible but without killing anyone to stay within the boundaries of the rules. But Widmore hiring Keamy to kill Alex broke that pact and let all hell loose. I certainly think there are more elements to the Rules, but I’m liking this theory.

1. Jacob’s nemesis/the bearded dude in black in the beginning/the thing posing as John Locke = the Smoke Monster. Since the finale, many “Lost” bloggers have put forward this idea and I’m on board with them. It totally fits and, even more, it makes sense. It’s as good as established that Smokey is a shape shifter, and apparently he can take the form of any dead body on the island (Christian, Yemi, Alex, Locke). As Locke, Esau led Ben to his own Smokey lair for judgment. In that scene, Esau-Locke and the Smoke Monster never appear together, indicating that they could be one in the same. Based on Jacob and Esau’s interaction in the first scene, I’d say Smokey’s attitude toward intruders (terrorism, beatings, general fury) corresponds with Esau’s reaction toward the coming of the boat (which I’m assuming is the Black Rock we’ve already seen).

*Top 5 Questions Surrounding the Season Finale*

5. If Esau can take the form of smoke and dead bodies, can Jacob become some weirdo shapes as well?
4. Why does Jack need Kate’s approval in all he does now? He asked for her to back him with the false story on Penny’s boat. He asked her to come back with him to the island. And in the finale he asked her to follow his plan to blow up the island. Why can’t he do anything without her permission? Does it, in some way, relate to Jacob and Esau’s Rules?
3. Who put Jacob in charge?
2. Did Sayid purposefully rig the bomb so it wouldn’t detonate on impact? And what happens with him?
1. Who is coming? And why did it piss Esau off so much?

*Top 5 Favorite Moments of the Season Finale*

5. Phil being impaled by those metal pipes — he was a total jerk.
4. Jack and Sawyer fight!
3. First, and last (possibly), view of Jacob!
2. Seeing Rose and Bernard again! They totally brought another element to the heavy episode and gave much-needed perspective to the crew — “We traveled back 30 years in time, and you’re still trying to find ways to shoot each other?” — even if they completely ignored it.
1. Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Miles are standing around the Swan station building site, guns in the air, ready to shoot anyone who impedes their mission. Jack’s poised over the drill hole with the plutonium core of a hydrogen bomb in his hands. He lets go and closes his eyes. Everyone flinches, preparing for the unknown impact. They wait. They wait. Seconds pass, and nothing. No one knows how long it should take for the bomb to fall and detonate. But it reaches the point where it is clear that the bomb is a dud. There will be no explosion, no reset, nothing.

*Top 5 Previous Episode Parallels in the Season Finale*
_(I’m including this because it’s cool but also because I think it’s relevant. I’m thinking that the season finale featured things we’ve seen before because the final season will be something completely new and different. Just an idea.)_

5. Jack and Sayid’s journey through the jungle with a bomb in the backpack parallels Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley, and Rosseau’s voyage through the jungle with dynamite in their backpacks in season one’s finale.
4. The long-awaited punch-fest between Jack and Sawyer parallels Jack’s long-awaited pummel of Ben in season three’s finale.
3. Sawyer and Juliet’s time-crunched exchanges of love parallels Desmond and Penny’s time-crunched exchanges of love in season four.
2. “Who’s in the box?” question parallels “Who’s in the coffin?” question in the season three finale and the revelation of John Locke’s body as the inhabitant parallels the same revelation in season four’s finale.
1. Juliet’s sacrificial death to save her friends parallels Charlie’s sacrificial death in season three’s finale.

*Top 5 Random Facts from the Season Finale*

5. Free will got some interesting playtime. Juliet exercised free will by changing her mind again and again. Jacob invoked it when he told Ben “You have a choice.” Which is interesting considering the equal attention determinism received.
4. The tapestry in Jacob’s lair may be an allusion to the Fates, the three chicks with the power to thread the story of a man’s life. My brother’s friend Steve shared this description (from “Life of Apollonius of Tyana”): “The threads which the Fates spin are so unchangeable, that, even if they decreed to someone a kingdom which at the moment belonged to another, and even if that other slew the man of destiny, to save himself from ever being deprived by him of his throne, nevertheless the dead man would come to life again in order to fulfill the decree of the Fates … He who is destined to become a carpenter, will become one even if his hands have been cut off: and he who has been destined to carry off the prize for running in the Olympic games, will not fail to win even if he broke his leg: and a man to whom the Fates have decreed that he shall be an eminent archer, will not miss the mark, even though he lost his eyesight.” The Losties can do whatever they want in the past, present, or future, but no matter what, they’ll be achieving the ends Jacob has laid out for them.
3. Jacob’s tapestry reads: “May the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires,” which is a line from The Odyssey.
2. The statue represents the Egyptian goddess Taweret, described by Wikipedia as a demon and the cause of evil during the day. Her name means “One who is great.”
1. Question: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” Answer: “Ille qui nos omnis servabit.” Translation: “He who will save us all.”

Lost’s final season premieres Tuesday, Feb. 2, at 8 p.m. on ABC. Check my blog every Wednesday morning for a recap and some dish on theories that are floating around.